Moving on
by Meen Jan
Summary: Shane Schofield wants to move on.


**AN: Contains hints of a sexual relationship between two characters of the same gender. Hope you like it, and as always, comments are welcome : ) Thanks for reading!**

Shane Schofield steps into the hall with trepidation; this isn't a meeting he's been particularly looking forward to (and yet he's been counting down the days to it).

He spies her at the far end of the room, gamely presiding over the inspection of Mother's titanium leg by a thirteen-year-old girl and a forty-year old man. Mother seems to find it endlessly amusing.

His view of her is blocked suddenly, when someone materialises in front of him.

"I knew you'd come," Sean beams.

"Wouldn't have missed it for the world," he replies, enveloping him in a hug.

Sean chit chats a little more, about why he wanted to have a small wedding (although why he couldn't have it in the US or any other place on a _map_ , for that matter, Shane doesn't know), about this wonderful girl whom he's marrying, and his unbearable in-laws, and how the Beatles played Yellow Submarine at the wedding—

Wait, what?

"I just wanted to see if you were paying attention, and since you're not, why don't you get it off your chest first and then we'll have a nice talk?"

Shane smiles and gives Sean an apologetic re-hug. Bracing himself, he heads over to the woman he both desperately wants and doesn't want to meet.

She looks up at him when he's a few yards away, and his breath catches when he sees those luminous blue eyes, so utterly Irish.

She smiles. "Captain Schofield, it's a pleasure."

He swallows. "You know me?"

"Astro- I mean, Sean has made it his life's mission to sing paeans about your glory to anyone who'll listen."

He snuffs a laugh. "Funny, he does the same thing to us with your team. We're tired of hearing about the Fast and the Furious re-enactment in Egypt."

She laughs, a wholesome, true laugh.

"I need to show you something," he says, apropos of nothing.

She raises an eyebrow as he pulls out a faded photograph from his wallet and hands it to her— a photograph of his original Recon Marine team, at a beach barbeque, all wearing hideous Hawaii shirts. Her gaze travels along the faces when she focuses on one in particular.

"Elizabeth Gant! Jesus, it's been a while since I've seen her. How do you know her?"

"She used to be in my team."

She picks up on the past tense and her stare turns questioning.

"She died a few years ago."

Her eyes widen and the fingers clutching the photograph tighten and turn white.

He sees her suddenly struggling to blink back tears and decides to give her a minute or two to recover.

Sooner than he expects, she asks, in a slightly wavering voice, "I'm sorry— she was kind of special to me— but I'm guessing you already knew that."

"I wanted to thank you," he says. She starts to interrupt, when he continues quietly," I know you were very important to her."

She scoffs. "Hardly. We were both each other's wild oats," she says, but her eyes don't meet his.

"You made a real difference in her life, you know."

"Well, after her divorce and my break-up, we were both in terrible places at the time. I guess we just found something in each other we...didn't find anywhere else."

"She said you lost touch a ways back, around —"

"—1996. Yes. I wasn't in a position to reply to any of her communications." He notices that she quickly glances at the little girl and the man, still engaged in a deep discussion with Mother. She's playing with the golden band on her left ring finger.

"Does he know?"

"Yes. He pretends to be jealous. It's quite adorable, actually," she chuckles, with a fond glance at the man. He now looks up at them, and catching her stare, he winks at her. She laughs and ducks her head.

"Few men like him." "I know."

Her voice grows soft but steady now and she places a hand over his. "I know what you're doing, Captain."

When she catches his puzzled look, she goes on. "Several weeks after my brother died, I woke up in the morning and for the first time in weeks, my first thought wasn't about him. I felt so guilty that I was letting go, so much so that I did everything I could to remind myself of him. Went through his stuff. Met up with his friends. Visited his ex.

"He was the only family I'd ever known. I was so afraid of disrespecting his memory, of forgetting him, that I'd forgotten how to _live_. It took me a while to realise that he wouldn't have wanted that. He would've wanted me to be happy, to actually live and enjoy the happier world that he helped make.

"And I'm sure Elizabeth would've wanted the same," she says quietly. "Don't feel guilty for moving on, Captain. Don't be afraid to live."

With a final pat on his arm, she walks away to her husband.

Schofield watches as she wraps an arm around him, as he pulls her to his side and they both laugh at Mother's sportive answers to their daughter's questions.

He laughs softly to himself, pulls out his phone and makes a call.

" _Allo?"_

"Bonjour," he says, and smiles.


End file.
